The greedy saline soil had eaten everything.
I rooted out the twisted, writhen roots of
The vines that curled here once upon a time –
The earth was nubbly, desiccated, scabby,
Like a feverish sick woman’s lips...
Beneath its lacerated sole my foot
Grew calloused from leaning on the shovel,
My hands were swelling with a painful fire,
As iron would collide with buried skulls.
She put up quite a fight against me with
A kind of atavistic vengefulness, but I
Went at her with my pick – like so, like so,
I will out-stubborn your stubbornness!
Here sprightly peas will soon begin to curl,
The corn will raise its thick stalks skyward,
An elephantine pumpkin, big with child,
Will loose her serpent tresses like the Gorgon.
Ah! Neither crocuses nor snowdrops smell
In spring so satisfyingly of spring as
The garden bed’s first-blooming cucumber!...
The sharp fang of my pick shone in the sun,
Around me, clumps of earth bobbed up and crumbled,
A sea breeze blew, the sweat ran down my back
And cooled, congealing as a cold slender snake, –
And never had the rapture of possession
Burned through me with such cloudless
Completeness and such piercing pride...
And in the valley there, the almonds fade
And in their place the peach trees start to bloom.
Все выел ненасытный солончак.
Я корчевала скрюченные корни
Когда-то здесь курчавившихся лоз, —
Земля корявая, сухая, в струпьях,
Как губы у горячечной больной...
Под рваною подошвою ступня
Мозолилась, в лопату упираясь,
Огнем тяжелым набухали руки, —
Как в черепа железо ударялось.
Она противоборствовала мне
С какой-то мстительностью древней, я же
Киркой, киркой ее — вот так, вот так,
Твое упрямство я переупрямлю!
Здесь резвый закурчавится горох,
Взойдут стволы крутые кукурузы,
Распустит, как Горгона, змеи - косы
Брюхатая, чудовищная тыква.
Ах, ни подснежники, ни крокусы не пахнут
Весной так убедительно весною,
Как пахнет первый с грядки огурец!..
Сверкал на солнце острый клык кирки,
Вокруг, дробясь, подпрыгивали комья,
Подуло морем, по спине бежал
И стынул пот студеной, тонкой змейкой, —
И никогда блаженство обладанья
Такой неомраченной полнотой
И острой гордостью меня не прожигало...
А там, в долине, отцветал миндаль
И персики на смену зацветали.
«The city took off its wintery things. / The snows turned slobbery. / Spring has come again, / foolish and loose-tongued / as an army cadet.»
«The hooves clattered. / As if singing: / — Crib. / Grab. / Grub. / Gruff. Drunk with the wind, / ice-shod, / the street slid away, / a horse landed / with a wallop on its crupper, / and instantly, / gaper after gaper, / boot-cut pants on Kuznetskii, / ganged up / with ...»
«I have a mom on the cornflower-blue wallpaper. / I stroll in mottled slacks, / and torment the whirly daises with measured steps. / An evening begins to frolic on rusty oboes, / I come to the small window, / believing, / that I shall again see / the cloud / seated on top of the house...»
«The street collapsed, as a syphilitic’s nose. / The river — drivelling voluptuousness. / Casting off their garments until the last leaf, / the gardens lay obscenely spread in June. I went to the square, / put on a burnt quarter / on my head, as a red-headed wig. / The people are afr...»